The Arizona sentinel., 1887-07-16
PECULIAR CUSTOMS.
BaptismaI Superstitions Prevailing Amo
 the TrsnsyIvania Saxons.

BaptismaI Expectations Prevailing Among
 the Pennsylvania Saxons-
 The Saxon mother is careful not to leave her child alone until it has been baptized, for fear of the malignant spirits, who may steal it away, leaving an uncouth elf in its place. Whenever child grows up clumsy and heavy, with large head, wide mouth, stump nose and crooked legs, the gossips are ready to swear that it has been changed in the cradle, more especially if it prove awkward and slow in learning to speak. To guard against such an ac- cident, it is recommended to mothers obliged to leave their infants alone, to place beneath the pillow either a prayer book, a broom, loaf of bread or knife stuck point upward.
 Very cruel remedies have sometimes been resorted to in order to force the evil spirits to restore the child they have stolen, and take back their own changeling. For instance, the un- fortunate little creature, suspected of being an elf, was placed stride upon a hedge and beaten with a thorny branch until it was quite bloody; it was then supposed that the evil -ssssirits- Ur0ugnU bdUA Une SUoIen child.
 The infant should not be suffered to look at itself in the glass till after the baptism, nor should it be held near an open window. A very efiicacious pre- servation against all sorts of evil spells is to hang round the child's neck a little triangular bag stuffed with grains of incense, wormwood and various aromatic herbs, and with an adder's head embroidered outside; gold coin sewed into the cap will likewise keep the spirits away.
 Two godfathers and two godmoth- CTS are generally appointed at Saxon peasant christenings, and it is cus- tomary that one couple should be old and the other young; but in no case should husband and wife figure as god-parents at the same baptism, but each one of the quartet must belong to a different family. This is the general custom; but in some districts the rule demands two godfathers and one god mother for boy-two godmothers and one godfather for a girl.
 If the parents have lost other chil- dren before, then the infant should not be carried out by the door in go- ing to church, but handed out by the window, and brought back in the same way. It should be carried by the broadest street, never by narrow lanes, else it will learn thieving.
 The god-parents must not look round on their way 10 church; and the first person met by the christening pro- cession will decide the sex of the next child to be born-a boy, if it be man.
 If two children are baptized out of the same water, one of them will soon die; and if several boys are christened successively in the same church, there will be war in the land as soon as they are grown up. Many girls denote fruitful vintages for the country when they have attained amarriageable age.
 If the child sleeps during the bap- tismal ceremony, then it will be pious and good-tempered; but if it cries. it will be bad-tempered or unlucky; therefore, the first question asked by the parents on the return from church is generally: Was it a quiet baptism?" and if such has not been the case, the sponsors are apt to conceal the truth. -PODuldr Science MOnthLu.